Stat Dude: "Long game is more important than short game."

The inevitable re-interpretation of the amazing ShotLink treasure trove is about to start becoming a major topic in the game as Tim Rosaforte recently noted.

Jason Sobel delves into Mark Broadie's view on golf stats and mentions Broadie's upcoming book, “Every Shot Counts.” His message: "Long game is more important than short game."

“When I compare the top players on the PGA Tour, I find that the long game contributes about two-thirds to their success while the short game and putting contributes about one-third,” Broadie said. “Initially I was surprised, so I analyzed the data in different ways and found that all roads led to the same conclusion.”

For example, in any given year if you looked at the scoring average of the top 10 on the money list compared with those ranking 116-125, the scoring average differential would be about two strokes. Based on Broadie’s comparative analysis, about 1.4 of those strokes gained would come from the long game, while only 0.6 would be attributable to short game and putting.

Larry Dorman also takes a look at Broadie's book and offers a similarly positive review, though he focuses on several different elements, including this about Tiger's putting prowess getting too much love:

As the author points out, “applying math to settled wisdom,” putting accounted for an average of 28 percent of the strokes Woods gained in his 24 victories.

“This is significantly less than the winners overall average of 35 percent,” Broadie writes. “In his victories, Tiger gained 1.14 putts per round on the field, but he gained 2.94 strokes per round with his tee-to-green play.”

State Of The Game Podcast 28: Judy Rankin

Judy Rankin is a 26-time winner on the LPGA Tour, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame as a player, and if there was ever a golf broadcasting wing, she'd be inducted again for her eloquence, class and succinct appraisals that set the standard for on-course reporting.

Judy kindly spent more than hour with the State of the Game podcast to talk about her career, the LPGA Tour, golf broadcasting and of course, the state of the game.

You can listen via MP3 here. Or to past shows the same where via this page. And the iTunes option for all past shows, or this week's episode to listen/subscribe.

Update on 2013-10-01 18:05 by Geoff

**And while we're in podcast mode, here's my chat with Josh LaBell and Adam Fonseca on the Dimplehead golfer podcast about the Presidents Cup.

"What will fewer star appearances mean for the PGA Tour and its smaller events?"

Nice SI/golf.com Confidential today with this especially sharp discussion on the trend of stars playing less as the tour adds more.

Gary Van Sickle and Joe Passov with two vital points:

VAN SICKLE: The PGA Tour continues to eat its young. The World Golf Championships made the lower-level Tour stops seem less, then the FedEx Cup made the WGC and all the regular stops seem less. Plus the FedEx Cup "playoffs" killed the summer schedule. Players are forced to play seven of 11 weeks from the U.S. Open on (two majors, four FedEx Cup, one WGC), thus making every other date on the schedule unattractive to the top players, and therefore to potential sponsors. “Less is more” sounds like a snappy argument unless you're out of the top 50 and suddenly can play only 22 events instead of 32. It's an alarming trend.

PASSOV: If he skips smaller, Tiger-less events such as Humana, L.A., Houston and St. Jude, they're in trouble. Here in Phoenix, where we have been without Tiger since 2001, we always say, "But at least we have Phil." Nobody moves the needle like Tiger, but Lefty is a healthy second.

"As golf enters its own Moneyball Era, every number counts..."

It's been a longtime coming, but the Moneyball mentality has finally come to golf, reports Tim Rosaforte in this week's Golf World.

Most notably, Brandt Snedeker and Zach Johnson are attributing some of their recent success to more numbers crunching by outside sources, and it's not all ShotLink stats helping the players prepare. Snedeker won't reveal much other than the role Mark Horton has played.

"The lines [between a good and great season] are so thin, so I'm trying to find any edge I can get," Snedeker said. "Mark's done a great job for me of understanding who I am as a golfer. We, as professional golfers, have a tendency of thinking we're strong in particular areas, and that may not be the case at all. He does a great job of identifying what I need to work on, what my strengths are so I play to those, and what my weaknesses are, so I can play away from them."

At East Lake a year ago, Horton worked his computer in the clubhouse, and Snedeker executed a game plan that resulted in a sweep of the final playoff event and the FedEx Cup title for an $11.44 million payday. At the end of the year, Snedeker said Horton was the difference for him in jumping from 38th to ninth on the World Ranking.

Johnson was less secretive about his work with Peter Sanders, whose Shot By Shot website is part of the numbers crunching process.

Sanders, who works out of his house in Connecticut, contends that ShotLink stats are "myopic" and "one-dimensional answers to multi-dimensional questions." The blunt comments point to the theory that identifying tangible areas of improvement that can truly help improve scoring comes from a more focused exploration of the data.

Finchem: "I can't find too much wrong in what we're doing."

Commissioner Vader appeared on Morning Drive for da full hour and if you like an arrogant, dismissive and a steady monotone, this was television gold!

As usual, the Commish put out all of the fires of the current tour, of which there are many created by the thirst to fill every week on the calendar with PGA Tour golf. (Kudos to Williams, Hack and even Finchem fishing buddy Rolfing for picking sensitive topics).

A few quotes to remember from Finchem.

On players skipping playoff events: "I don't see it developing as some kind of trend."

He did concede that the FedExCup points have "too much volatility" but summed up the current state of the tour by saying, "I can't find too much wrong in what we're doing."

Gary Williams left the interview (AFTRA rules forbid listening to Commissionerspeak for an hour straight) and Finchem fishing buddy Mark Rolfing took his place, and the topic of rules came up. Unfortunately, the one really bizarre moment was not part of the Golf Channel uploads posted below.

In a nutshell: when the topic of Tiger's ridiculous final round drop at The Players came up, Finchem revealed his axe to grind with Johnny Miller for basing his analysis on Mark Rolfing's initial reaction and the blimp shot, whereas Finchem took the evidence in and as he said this morning, declared to himself, " no problem here."

How anyone could watch that situation play out and not even concede it looked bad, is pretty disturbing.

Anyway, Finchem's rambling answer on simplifying the rules where he essentially says the PGA Tour has no desire to get into the rules business and that the Rules of Golf, as written, are "not that far off now."

On fan rulings he tries to explain why they aren't the end of the world, but doesn't go so far to say that getting rid of phone-in help would create the perception of cheating or incompetance.

Senator Introduces Legislation To Deny Tax-Exempt Status To Non-Profits With Revenues Greater Than $10 Million

Rick Cohen of The Hill reports on Senator Tom Coburn's legislation that would deny tax-exempt status for "professional sports leagues with revenues greater than $10 million."

The bill has not been posted but you can read the Senator's talking points here which include a misspelling of Commissioner Finchem's name.

Ryan Ballengee broke down the talking points and noted this:

In his talking points, Coburn also suggests PGA Tour executives and its players — labeled “independent contractors” — make way more through the 501(c)6 structure than other trade organizations. For example, PGA Tour players and sponsors have raked in millions while taxpayers effectively subsidized the tour’s operations. In 2010, the tour paid its (sic) five of its most successful golfers a combined $37.4 million. That same year, sponsors — who pay to have their brands advertised at tournaments and on television broadcasts — received $44 million of the tour’s $1.4 billion revenue (sic). Tim Fincehm, PGA Tour’s commissioner, received a handsome sum of $3.7 million in 2010 from the nonprofit PGA Tour itself and $1.5 million from its related organizations.

Wait until the Senator sees Finchem's 2011 pay and the other executive compensation.

A New Low: The FedExCup Rap

The word pathetic comes to mind annually when watching the PGA Tour attempt to make FedEx feel like they are getting their $50 million or so dollars for sponsoring the lamest "playoff" in sports, but rarely are the attempts in any way awkward, brutally annoying or disturbing in the amount of man hours so clearly devoted to the cause.

Until now.

Alex Myers posted the video of the agonizing "FedExCup Rap" put together by the PGA Tour, perhaps in conjunction with NBC because I do think I remember waking from one of my Tour Championship naps to the frightening image of Charl Schwartzel attempting to be cool, then turning the channel.

If you want to feel the agony of the entire sad spectacle, Ryan Ballengee has transcribed the lyrics.

FedEx this baby down to Guantanmo. Priority Overnight!